Victoria Limbert's Blog, page 6
February 18, 2014
Incubus Hunter (Erotic Elf #1) Book Review
Author- Kenya WrightMy Rating- 4 STARS
Synopsis- Whispers swirl throughout the underworld of Carmen, the fanged elf with the violet eyes. They say she hunts incubus demons, not for money, but to clear a debt with a powerful wizard.
But time is winding down. Carmen has five days to clear the balance or she loses her daughter. Desperation forces her to go after Blaze. He’s worth two million dollars dead or alive.
The hunt begins. She spots him and sets a seductive trap. It’s just business as usual—until she ends up capturing so much more.
My Review- What a great read! Short but full of spice and action and very steamy scenes.
Carmen is a dark Elf who hunts incubus demons for the money they are worth to a sorcerer, in hopes of paying off her elusive husbands debt and free her daughter from being sold in to slavery. She has one quirk no other elf has, fangs filled with venom powerful enough to put those she bites in to a deep sleep.
She hunts Blaze a seductive demon who is far more powerful than the lower level incubus demons she has been hunting. His worth could finally pay off the debt. Except that she never expected him to be quite so irresistible.
Blaze has lost his enjoyment of women and sex after so many years as a demon and finds that he constantly needs to feed from women's lust just to feel sated. When Carmen finds him he can't seem to get her off his mind. She is the only woman that has stirred his lust and can satisfy him. He wants to own and protect her.
This is an erotic novella with very detailed, passionate and sexy scenes but for such a short book it is jammed with emotion, love, desperation and a great plot that kept me interested. I wanted it to be a much longer, deeper book. Great read! Looking forward to reading more by this author
January 15, 2014
Girl of Nightmares (Anna #2) Book Review
Author- Kendare BlakeMy Rating- 4 STARS
Synopsis- It's been months since the ghost of Anna Korlov opened a door to Hell in her basement and disappeared into it, but ghost-hunter Cas Lowood can't move on.
His friends remind him that Anna sacrificed herself so that Cas could live—not walk around half dead. He knows they're right, but in Cas's eyes, no living girl he meets can compare to the dead girl he fell in love with.
Now he's seeing Anna everywhere: sometimes when he's asleep and sometimes in waking nightmares. But something is very wrong...these aren't just daydreams. Anna seems tortured, torn apart in new and ever more gruesome ways every time she appears.
Cas doesn't know what happened to Anna when she disappeared into Hell, but he knows she doesn't deserve whatever is happening to her now. Anna saved Cas more than once, and it's time for him to return the favor.
My Review- Girl of Nightmares set a bit of a different pace to Anna Dressed in Blood. It wasn't as action filled until towards the end of the book though it did open up the story and show us how Cassio's knife was created and what darker powers it possesses. It was definitely slower moving.
Anna is haunting Cas from the place she dragged herself and the voodoo ghost in to. It is her Hell and the Obeahman's world to play in. Here is he strong and uses the endless hours to torment Anna and subject her to every painful torture imaginable. Since she was cut with Cassio's knife, she has a link to him in the real world and he is forced to watch her suffer time and time again. It is tearing Cas apart and he knows in his heart she does not belong in that kind of Hell. His love for her sets him on a path to free her from that world and the grip voodoo ghost. The path leads him to the Order that created his Athame knife and they are not happy that he wants to pull a murderous ghost from Hell, whether she belongs there or not. The Price for bringing her back is high but the choice for Cas is easy, he feels in his heart he is doing the right thing.
This book was written fantastically, I love Cassio's 'voice', I love being in his mind....but that ending! In one way I was glad about it, but in another way I felt let down. His love for Anna is special and he went through so much for her for it to end that way. Still, I loved Girl of Nightmares, though maybe not quite as much as Anna Dressed in Blood which I found more passionate and gripping. Thomas and Carmel, as always, are brilliant and I like Carmel more and more as the series progresses..
Just....that ending....
January 11, 2014
Anna Dressed in Blood (Anna #1) Book Review
Author- Kendare BlakeMy Rating- 5 STARS
Synopsis- Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.
So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. They follow legends and local lore, destroy the murderous dead, and keep pesky things like the future and friends at bay.
Searching for a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas expects the usual: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.Yet she spares Cas's life.
Review- This was a fantastic book I just couldn't put down!
Cas is a seventeen year old ghost hunter, he comes from a long line of ghost hunters and takes up this duty when his father is viciously murdered by a particularly nasty ghost. He slays only those who are reliving their torment and murdering humans. They cant help it. He helps them to move from this world in to the next...whatever the next world is. When Cas takes on the job to end the hauntings of Anna, a ghost who literally tears her victims apart and wears a dress red with slick blood, he cant get her out of his mind. When he meets her, he never expected to care for her, to witness the terror of her life and the shocking way she died. Anna is more aware than any ghost. She knows she is dead and she knows there is something dark inside her that she can barely control. Only Cas has escaped death. Never before has Cas second guessed himself when it comes to killing a ghost until Anna.
I found this book beautiful, humorous, fun, sassy and fast paced. I looked forward to turning every page and yet hated that it had to end. Anna is a beautiful character that captured my heart, especially after hearing her story of pain and death. She is strong, brave and yet so vulnerable. I rarely read books with a male lead but Cassio's mind was fantastic. He is a determined character, sure of his duty in the world and yet when Anna knocks him off balance I loved very second of him trying to figure out why he couldn't bring himself to kill her. His mum, Carmel and Thomas add their own personalities and are great supporting cast in a book I feel should be a YA film!
The ending to this book was amazingly written and I am now longing to reach for the second in the series which is sitting proudly on my bookcase! 5 star amazing read. Loved it
January 5, 2014
World After (Penryn and the End of Days #2) Book Review
Author- Susan EeMy Rating- 4 STARS
Synopsis- When a group of people capture Penryn's sister Paige, thinking she's a monster, the situation ends in a massacre. Paige disappears. Humans are terrified. Mom is heartbroken.
Penryn drives through the streets of San Francisco looking for Paige. Why are the streets so empty? Where is everybody? Her search leads her into the heart of the angels' secret plans where she catches a glimpse of their motivations, and learns the horrifying extent to which the angels are willing to go.
Meanwhile, Raffe hunts for his wings. Without them, he can't rejoin the angels, can't take his rightful place as one of their leaders. When faced with recapturing his wings or helping Penryn survive, which will he choose?
My Review- World After for me was a fun read, though it didn't quite hold the quality of the first book in the series. I gave Angelfall 5 stars because it was different, sweet, adventurous and that emotion between Raffe and Penryn stuck with me for days after reading it.
World After didn't seem to have the depth the first book did. However, this felt like the book that is going to set the others in the series up nicely. A lot of travelling and plot setting was made throughout the book, showing us what the Angels are up to and the background events leading up to such a devastating apocalypse. The writing style is fun and the love that went in to this book is obvious and so I enjoyed it and, as always that touching romance between Raffe and Penryn got under my skin. It isn't insta-love, it isn't that 'omg this man is all I see and nothing else matters' filling every page. There are believable problems between the two characters, life shattering problems surrounding them, their own personal goals to pursue.
I liked this book, but I know I am going to really enjoy the next book.
November 15, 2013
First Chapter of God of the Darklands
God of the Darklands is my epic fantasy WIP about Gods, Gifted mortals, Elementals and monstrous creatures. Below is the first chapter. Tell me what you think so far.....
‘In the beginning we were but a thought, a fantasy, a vision, of our true Creator, the Es Soulla, and breathed in to life, in to being.’
- Ameris, Scroll of Beginnings
1
Wrapped from head to toe in black, he became a shadow, showing only his shimmering storm-grey eyes, flashing every time a crack of lightening ravaged the grim sky. His skin ran pale, almost as grey as his irises, visible in the narrow strip of his dark mask. He pulled his cloak tight across a lean, muscled body, stopping it from flapping wildly in the wind and lowered his hood against the storm.
He could smell the rotting odour of decomposing bodies and old sweat. Unwashed bodies had a sickeningly sweet smell that hung on the air, invaded the nostrils and seemed to seep in to his very pores. It was a smell he had become accustomed to over the passing months and, in truth, in all his years living in Aria it was not the worst smell he had come across.
The dark clad man lowered in to a crouch and moved in a predatory crawl to the edge of the steep hillside. Darkland demons thundered far below him on a beaten trail leading away from the town of Dirra in to The Plains, their deformed, monstrous bodies encased in metal armour. A town, he thought coldly, they had devastated and destroyed. He had watched them burn poorly made huts with flickering torches, forcing families out on to the streets where they were cut down with no remorse. The men were slaughtered, children torn apart, the women raped and tormented before they were slain. The bloodbath had not lasted long. No more than a few hours. From bloodcurdling screams to
heavy silence.
He knew none had been left alive, there was no need to search Dirra for survivors, but he would wait until the armoured demons were a safe distance away and do what was required of him.
Keeping to the shadows, the dark man walked steadily down the hill and disappeared through the smoke and fire. He checked every house, every throat of every corpse still intact, even some that were not. Once satisfied none had survived to tell the grisly tale he moved fast to pick up the stinking trail of the deformed monsters.
The demons had already destroyed Meresa and Throm, and before them they had slaughtered the people of Corus and Midere. Soon all the border towns would be nothing but blackened, poisoned land. The demons would make their way to the Citadel of Morenna and the Humans, as diminished as they were, would fall easily.
The demons were easy to find. The odour they left in their wake could be smelled for miles. The dark man followed them to a camp where they were resting after battle, where they feasted on the limbs of men. He watched as one tore the fingers from a hand it had brought with it from the slaughters. Blood spurted in a bright red stream across its face and a forked tongue greedily flicked out to lap it up, not wasting a single drop.
Disgusted, he turned away and found a place nearby to wait. He was not allowed to end their pitiful lives, and nor did he care to expend the effort to do so. He would follow his orders, and that was all. He would watch and wait until he found survivors. That was his only mission.
Finding a damp patch of grass beneath a shelter of fallen rocks, he rested, sighing at his seemingly
meaningless task. In the three seasons he had been following the beasts they had left none alive. They were careful, thorough, and lusted for the slaughter.
Sighing once more, he stared up at the roiling sky. Watching the way the lightening travelled across
the purple-blue clouds, brightening the land in rapid bursts, and then leaving it in murky darkness. He longed to follow the storm, to chase the wind wherever it may lead. He wished for it to take him far from this poor, barren land. A place where there were lush green forests, the hum of animal life and the silken skin of women. Elf women. He preferred their willowy bodies, rich scented hair and strange coloured eyes, but in this moment he would settle for a hardened Tiberian woman, or a brash speaking Alac-Narian. Any woman to love for a few hours, to pass away the long, dark nights.
The dark man closed his eyes and filled his mind with memories of the many women he had lain with over the years. He breathed in the spices of perfume and soap, remembered the feel of satin clothes slipping through his fingers as they fell to the floor. He was so immersed in his dream he nearly missed the delicate thud outside his shelter.Most would not have heard it.
He did not stir. This was a sound familiar to him and he felt a small, uncommon smile twitch at the corners of his lips.
“One day I will care enough to ask how you always seem to find me, Nikira.” His voice was soft, with only a slight growl at the edge of his words. “Come. Stay here with me. The night is much too cold for you to be running around alone.”
Thank you for reading. If you wish to comment you can do so via the comments option or go to the contact form on the 'Contact Me!' page at the top of my website. Hope you enjoyed this piece.
‘In the beginning we were but a thought, a fantasy, a vision, of our true Creator, the Es Soulla, and breathed in to life, in to being.’
- Ameris, Scroll of Beginnings
1
Wrapped from head to toe in black, he became a shadow, showing only his shimmering storm-grey eyes, flashing every time a crack of lightening ravaged the grim sky. His skin ran pale, almost as grey as his irises, visible in the narrow strip of his dark mask. He pulled his cloak tight across a lean, muscled body, stopping it from flapping wildly in the wind and lowered his hood against the storm.
He could smell the rotting odour of decomposing bodies and old sweat. Unwashed bodies had a sickeningly sweet smell that hung on the air, invaded the nostrils and seemed to seep in to his very pores. It was a smell he had become accustomed to over the passing months and, in truth, in all his years living in Aria it was not the worst smell he had come across.
The dark clad man lowered in to a crouch and moved in a predatory crawl to the edge of the steep hillside. Darkland demons thundered far below him on a beaten trail leading away from the town of Dirra in to The Plains, their deformed, monstrous bodies encased in metal armour. A town, he thought coldly, they had devastated and destroyed. He had watched them burn poorly made huts with flickering torches, forcing families out on to the streets where they were cut down with no remorse. The men were slaughtered, children torn apart, the women raped and tormented before they were slain. The bloodbath had not lasted long. No more than a few hours. From bloodcurdling screams to
heavy silence.
He knew none had been left alive, there was no need to search Dirra for survivors, but he would wait until the armoured demons were a safe distance away and do what was required of him.
Keeping to the shadows, the dark man walked steadily down the hill and disappeared through the smoke and fire. He checked every house, every throat of every corpse still intact, even some that were not. Once satisfied none had survived to tell the grisly tale he moved fast to pick up the stinking trail of the deformed monsters.
The demons had already destroyed Meresa and Throm, and before them they had slaughtered the people of Corus and Midere. Soon all the border towns would be nothing but blackened, poisoned land. The demons would make their way to the Citadel of Morenna and the Humans, as diminished as they were, would fall easily.
The demons were easy to find. The odour they left in their wake could be smelled for miles. The dark man followed them to a camp where they were resting after battle, where they feasted on the limbs of men. He watched as one tore the fingers from a hand it had brought with it from the slaughters. Blood spurted in a bright red stream across its face and a forked tongue greedily flicked out to lap it up, not wasting a single drop.
Disgusted, he turned away and found a place nearby to wait. He was not allowed to end their pitiful lives, and nor did he care to expend the effort to do so. He would follow his orders, and that was all. He would watch and wait until he found survivors. That was his only mission.
Finding a damp patch of grass beneath a shelter of fallen rocks, he rested, sighing at his seemingly
meaningless task. In the three seasons he had been following the beasts they had left none alive. They were careful, thorough, and lusted for the slaughter.
Sighing once more, he stared up at the roiling sky. Watching the way the lightening travelled across
the purple-blue clouds, brightening the land in rapid bursts, and then leaving it in murky darkness. He longed to follow the storm, to chase the wind wherever it may lead. He wished for it to take him far from this poor, barren land. A place where there were lush green forests, the hum of animal life and the silken skin of women. Elf women. He preferred their willowy bodies, rich scented hair and strange coloured eyes, but in this moment he would settle for a hardened Tiberian woman, or a brash speaking Alac-Narian. Any woman to love for a few hours, to pass away the long, dark nights.
The dark man closed his eyes and filled his mind with memories of the many women he had lain with over the years. He breathed in the spices of perfume and soap, remembered the feel of satin clothes slipping through his fingers as they fell to the floor. He was so immersed in his dream he nearly missed the delicate thud outside his shelter.Most would not have heard it.
He did not stir. This was a sound familiar to him and he felt a small, uncommon smile twitch at the corners of his lips.
“One day I will care enough to ask how you always seem to find me, Nikira.” His voice was soft, with only a slight growl at the edge of his words. “Come. Stay here with me. The night is much too cold for you to be running around alone.”
Thank you for reading. If you wish to comment you can do so via the comments option or go to the contact form on the 'Contact Me!' page at the top of my website. Hope you enjoyed this piece.
November 6, 2013
Strength (Mark of Nexus #1) Book Review
Author- Carrie ButlerMy Rating- 4 STARS
Synopsis- When college student Rena Collins finds herself nose-to-chest with the campus outcast, her rumor-laced notions are shattered. Handsome, considerate, and seemingly sane, Wallace Blake doesn’t look like he spends his nights alone, screaming and banging on the walls of his dorm room. Hell, he doesn’t look like he spends his nights alone, period.
Too curious for her own good, Rena vows to uncover the truth behind Wallace’s madman reputation--and how two seconds of contact had left her with bruises. Of course, there are a few setbacks along the way: guilt, admiration, feelings of the warm
and fuzzy variety…
Not to mention the unwanted attention of Wallace's powerful, supernaturally-gifted family.
They’re a bloodline divided by opposing ideals, two soon-to-be warring factions that live in secret among us. When Rena ends up caught in their crossfire, Wallace has no choice but to save her by using his powers. Now they’re really in trouble. With war on the horizon and Rena’s life in the balance, he needs to put some distance between them. But Rena won’t let go. If fighting is what it takes to prove her own strength and keep Wallace in her life, then that’s what she’ll do--even if it means risking a whole lot more than her heart.
My Review- Rena, the protagonist of this novel, is definitely a fighter, is passionate and gossips as any typical young girl would. She is also a person that, once proven wrong, finds a way to fix her mistakes
and doesn't stop until she has achieved what she wants. Wallace, referred to as the Madman by the student body because of nasty rumours Rena helped start, turns out to be a nice guy.
Quiet, intense and gorgeous, Wallace has secrets he tries to keep Rena away from. Besides the Cluster Headaches he gets (an intense pain in his head that drives him to near insanity and drains him of all his strength in short bursts) he is also part of the supernatural. The Dynari are separate to humans in many ways, they have gifts and abilities superior to regular people, but they are dangerous people and some of them have other ideas about their existence and believe they should be above humans, that perhaps they can experiment on humans to make them better, not as weak. Wallace doesn't want to be a part of that world anymore, but when his twin brother Cole, who barely has a conscience, kidnaps Rena in an attempt to get Wallace to cooperate, he has no choice. Rena, despite being captured and terrified, proves she has strength and fights along side the supernatural beings, discovering something about herself along the way.
I will admit I found the first several chapters hard to engage with. Rena has a sassy, Mexican roommate who is...well...easy and I didn't like her and struggled to connect with Rena too. The other friend Aiden, the geeky misfit they befriended out of sympathy, is a bit bland though I think he might come to life later in the series. After the beginning, I really got in to the flow of the story, enjoyed the plotline and the characters. I adored Wallce and his brother Cole (personally I would get with Cole for his personality and cocky ways but he isn't the nicest guy)and Rena has skills and a mouth on her. The ending lost me a bit but I am looking forward to reading the second book in hopes it explains more about the last few chapters.
All in all, a good, fun read.
October 26, 2013
Walking Disaster Book Review
Author- Jamie McGuireMy Rating- 4 STARS
Synopsis- Can you love someone too much?
Travis Maddox learned two things from his mother before she died: Love hard. Fight harder.
In Walking Disaster, the life of Travis is full of fast women, underground gambling, and violence. But just when he thinks he is invincible, Abby Abernathy brings him to his knees.
My Review- Although I didn't enjoy this quite as much as I did from Abby's POV in Beautiful Disaster, it was so fun to be inside a mind of a guy with temper issues, commitment issues and Love issues.
Travis was taught a few important lessons from his mum just before she died; Love hard and fight harder. I really began to understand Travis and the way his personality shines when he is around Abby. He has fallen in love with the one girl who seems oblivious to him, his charms don't work on her and he enjoys her company as a friend as well as wanting something more. It confuses him and puts him in a place, within his own mind, where he doesn't know how to act or how to show this girl that she means everything to him. When she is out of his sight, he panics. Making him quite obsessive. The thought of anyone touching her sends him over the edge, which makes him possessive. Not the best qualities to have in a relationship and it puts a lot of strain on them.
Before Abby he was lost, slept around and only knows how to vent his anger on using a girl for the
night and drinking or in the Fight Clubs he uses to earn money. He hates himself when he does it but cant seem to stop when he gets emotional. When he and Abby fight, he goes back to his old ways. Abby is forgiving, but he doesn't entirely want her that way. He wants her to care about what he has done...he just doesn't want her to leave because he messes up. And that is the disaster of their
relationship. Both of them have serious issues that hurt the other, but they are made for each other, no matter how much it hurts them.
Travis becomes frustrated when he near enough changes his life for Abby and thinks she barely
notices, but Abby has the best pokerface he has ever seen. He knows she is running away from a life and from a person who has hurt her before, someone a not like him. She runs from him everytime things get tough and it messes with his head, makes him panic and fight. Its all he knows how to do. So he fights his hardest to keep her close, even if it makes him look like a violent madman. Its such a messed up tale that I cant help loving it!
Overall, I really loved this book and cant wait to read more by this author.
October 22, 2013
Beautiful Disaster Book Review
Author- Jamie McGuireMy Rating- 5 STARS!!
Synopsis- Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance from the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her
best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand.
Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby wants—and needs—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match
My Review- This book pulled on every emotion I am capable of. The characters are devastatingly flawed and doomed to a tough relationship full of heartbreak, anger, violent arguments and hopeless love. Abby, the protagonist of this love story, is strong minded, secretive, beautiful and tough. Her upbringing was not the greatest. She ran away from her childhood, from a gambling, manipulative, alcoholic father to start fresh and leave behind that kind of lifestyle...and yet she falls right in to the arms of Travis 'mad dog' Maddox, a fighter in an underground Circle, a man who drinks to forget his
pain, a man with a violent temper and is incredibly obsessive. Its all she hates... and yet all she wants.
We are not fooled by Travis in this amazing book. We know what we are getting in to by the first few chapters. He earns money by fighting, he takes a different girl home every night and has a box full of condoms in his drawer ready for anything. He expects women to fall at his feet, and they usually do. Every girl wants to Tame Travis Maddox. He is hot tempered and severely protective of his friends and everyone tries not to piss him off. So yeh...he is a violent SOB with an attitude problem. But this
isn't all Travis has to offer and that's what Abby and, hopefully, the reader sees! When she deflects his every charm he wants her all the more and their friendship soon gets blurred with real feelings. He protects her, he treats her well and shows her he isn't just a dirty scoundrel. He promises that he will
make mistakes, that he doesn't known how to love.....so how can we hate him??
Travis is not the typical superhero boyfriend that the female instantly loves and he is just so perfect and cheesy that it makes me a little sick...no, he is real. There are real men like him everywhere, messed up and 'fucking up' (his words not mine!) He is a damn breath of fresh air!!! And Abby is hardly innocent in this equation. She faces his tempers with equal fire, she accepts (and encourages sometimes) his violent outbursts and has the odd one herself. She is messed up from a life she escaped and runs at the first sign of trouble with Travis. Time and Time again they are pulled back to each other, whether through jealousy or a fight that becomes passionate love, of circumstances around them. They are made for each other, whether to hurt or love each other.
And this is possibly the longest I have spoken about a book. But this is what it did to me! Jamie McGuire wrote a novel that had my head whirling and spinning, even while I was trying to work and sleep. I felt Anger, Hate, Love, Regret, Forgiveness and Longing and so much more. Is Travis my ideal man in the real world? Hell no! Is he someone I could love, protect and want to fight the world for, even after seeing his every flaw? HELL YES!
So I will be buying Walking Disaster and delving in to Travis' head and find out what its like to be there, in the mess that is his brain. I don't think the author set out to create a knight in shining armour with this one. She created something real, a teenage whirlwind of angst and hormones and I am looking forward to another 6 hours of it
October 14, 2013
Night of the Purple Moon (The Toucan Trilogy #1)
Author- Scott CramerMy Rating- 4 STARS
Synopsis- Abby, 13, is looking forward to watching the moon turn purple, unaware that bacteria from a passing comet will
soon kill off older teens and adults. She must help her brother and baby sister survive in this new world, but all the while she has a ticking time bomb inside of her--adolescence.
My Review- Night of the Purple Moon was a sweet, endearing and yet brutal story of children surviving a world where space dust has killed the majority of adults around the globe.
Abby is a thirteen year old girl who, along with her brother and baby sister, have been forced to move to Castine Island when their father gets a job in the small, local library and Abby instantly misses her old life. She hasn't made many friends on the island and neither has her brother, Jordan. Though her brother has adapted well and loves to sail.
The world is excited about the Night of the Purple Moon, a unique event that happens when Earth's orbit takes them directly in to the back end of the comets tail and scientists predicted space dust consuming the atmosphere, though no one knew just how deadly it would be. That night, the
majority of the parents and adults around the world are found mysteriously dead. Abby, her brother and sister, and many other children on Castine Island find a way to build a community and survive, though it is not without its hardships.
The beauty of this book is reading about the strengths of the children, how they come together and take on adult roles, they teach each other how to survive, they try and keep their education going and they work hard to keep their family fed. When they discover why the space dust is killing adults
the children become fearful, because when they start changing, when their bodies transition from childhood to adulthood, time runs out and they succumb to the space dust germs.
Night of the Purple Moon was full of heartwarming moments, sad moments and sometimes truly brutal truths about death and the savageness of survival. It was a pleasure to read and I am sure I will be
seeking out book 2 in the series. The only thing I am unhappy about is how long I have had this book on my kindle and not read it
September 18, 2013
Here (On the Otherside #1) Book Review
Author- Denise Grovner SwankMy Rating- 4 STARS
Synopsis- Sixteen year old Julia Phillips buries herself in guilt after killing her best friend Monica in a car accident. Julia awoke in the hospital with a broken leg, a new talent for drawing and false memories of the accident, in which she dies and Monica lives. The doctors attribute this to her head injury, but no one can explain how a bracelet engraved with her name ended up at the scene of the accident. A bracelet no one has ever seen before.
Classmate Evan Whittaker paid Julia no attention before the accident, let alone after. Now suddenly he's volunteering to tutor her and offering to drive her home. She can't ignore that his new obsession started after his two-day disappearance last week and that he wears a pendant she's been drawing for months. When the police show up one night looking for Evan, he begs Julia to run with him, convincing her that Monica is still alive. Julia agrees to go, never guessing where he's really from.
My Review- This was a fantastic book that had me flipping the pages eagerly to see what was going to happen next.
Julia woke from her car accident with very little memory of what actually happened, except that her friend, Monica, died in the crash and she believes she is to blame for it. She has nightmares where she is the one who died and Monica lived, though doctors say its because of her head trauma. For months after the accident Julia retreats inside herself, hardly talking, hardly eating or bothering with
life at all. Her schoolwork suffers, as does her family. One day when she visits Monica's grave, crying and desperate, warm arms hold her and she blacks out, not knowing who comforted her. From that day things begin to change, she becomes more aware of her surroundings and attempts a return to normality, but she believes she is damaged beyond repair.
Evan, the school's Mr. Popular, has started to notice her and offers to tutor her in the subjects she is failing at. Julia can not help but wonder why this boy, a boy who has not said more than two words to her before, has started to talk to her now and why he seems to really like her. All Julia knows is that she is falling for him, drawing his name in elaborate doodles and drawing a Celtic Love Knot that matches a necklace he wears. Evan is a little cryptic and acts strange, nothing like the popular boy he is perceived to be by the entire student body. He insists the car accident was not Julia's fault and that she needs to stop feeling guilty. He gets upset when he sees a bracelet on her wrist, one Julia can not remember owning, but was found at the scene of the crash.
Then things start to heat up. The police are searching for Evan and Julia has no clue why. She hears
rumors that there are two Evan's out there, who look exactly alike. Julia is confused, and to be honest so was I!! Much of the time I was like 'What the heck is happening!' but that is the beauty of this kind of plotline, it keeps you reading and biting your nails, hoping to figure it out.
When Evan turns up terrified and desperate, asking her to run away with him, Julia barely hesitates. Her home life is falling apart, as is her school life, and this boy has been the only one to incite any emotion inside her and she is falling for him deeply. Of course, she never realized WHERE he was taking her. She didn't quite expect to be lost to a world she knew and thrown in to another one where
she finds herself at the centre of a complicated love triangle, futuristic technologies and an almost destroyed America.
To go in to any more detail would seriously ruin this great book. It had me debating whether I would choose Evan or Reece and honestly just wanted to have both them. Evan is trusting, brave, honourable and sweet and Reece is sarcastic, funny and rough around the edges...plus a genius in disguise. Julia is a heartfelt character and one I warmed to within the first couple of chapters. She is guilt-ridden, brave and broken, but she tries really hard to be the Julia she was before the accident.
I am looking forward to book 2 in this series. Reece has a deeper backstory that is only hinted at, his mother's quick 'disappearance' is suspicious and Reece believes the powerful people of his home town are behind it. Julia is stuck in a place that she doesn't belong in, in the middle of two men who love her and Evan has literally crossed a universe to find her. Something tells me things are only just beginning for these three and I am excited to see how it turns out!
